We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.Winston Churchill

Getting involved in charities in your community isn't just about passing the hat and raising cash. Often, it's about you making the effort and establishing a reputation for giving back. There's nothing that will help build your reputation faster than to be involved in charitable events in your community.This isn’t rocket science and it's hardly revolutionary, but in all honesty, for most photographers, especially those new to the industry, the concept hasn’t been in their thought process. I get it - you're buried and just trying to get your business off the ground is taking up all your time, but think about this...

You're looking for your community to be good to you. So, what are you going to do to be good to your community?

People like buying products and services from companies they perceive as giving back. You can’t just sit on the sidelines and watch life go by. You need to be directly involved and that doesn't necessarily mean with your camera.

As we start out this new year think about things you can do to give back:

Develop a promotion that ties in with a local or national charitable event. For example, you might want to announce all or a portion of every sitting fee going to a particular community campaign.

Build a promotional day, week or even month where all proceeds or a portion go to a local charity.

Volunteer to help non-profits in your community. This might not involve photography, but your donation of time. Often, just being involved will put you on the map as somebody who cares about the community.

Work to bring other photographers into the campaign. Nothing helps build a more positive competitive spirit more than a group of people working together for a common cause.

Donate your services to events and groups of people who simply need photographs. Two of my favorites are: NILMDTSand HeartsApart.org Each of these organizations involve your skills in portraiture and they both need help.

As you get more involved in your community, use your blog to help spread the news about upcoming events, fund-raisers etc.

Looking for more ideas? Check out this post from last year by Corey Schwartz. It's one of the best projects I've seen to get involved in a community. Plus, it brought together dozens of other artists, had great publicity value and created a product that would continue to create revenue, in this case for the children's hospital. Think of it as blue print for a giving back project that could be applied to other institutions and events.

Remember too...There's no such thing as a gift of giving back that's too small. What's important is simply doing something.

“If you wait until you can do everything for everybody, instead of something for somebody, you’ll end up not doing nothing for nobody.” Malcom Bane

"Why?"

Check out"Why?" one of the most popular features on the SCU Blog.It's a very simple concept - one image, one artist and one short sound byte. Each artist shares what makes the image one of their most favorite. There were fifty different artists featured in 2016 and we anticipate doubling that in 2017. Click on the link above and you can scroll through all of the episodes to date.

Authors

Skip Cohen is President of SCU, founder of Marketing Essentials International and past president of Rangefinder Publishing and WPPI. He's been an active participant in the photographic industry since joining Hasselblad USA in 1987 as president. He has co-authored six books on photography and actively supports dozens of projects each year involving photographic education.

Special Guests

SCU is proud to bring you some of the most recognized photographers in the industry. You'll also meet a few not so well known, but with terrific ideas to help you build a stronger business model.

Scott Bourne

Scott Bourne has retired, but as the first Dean of Marketing at SCU, a professional photographer and educator his support was critical to the success and growth of SCU. From time to time you'll see a reference to one of his Marketing Monday posts from the SCU or GoingPro archives.